My family has always been into Cremation as a way of "Taking up less space in Graveyards" likely more than any other reason I think. Also, you can scatter the ashes in the ocean or on land somewhere that you can more easily visit than a Graveyard. I think this is a lot of what it has been about in my family.
However, my wife's family is different and this person was a Staunch Catholic and so we went this morning to a "Mass" in her honor while her casket was up there near the altar too. And because my wife is a near relative of her we were sitting right in front of the casket. Though I usually deal with death pretty good compared to most people I sort of found the casket to be "Death in your Face" especially when my wife told me the previous day it had been an open casket thing that she went to that I was pretty glad I had missed because I was just too exhausted from Traveling from Santa Barbara to the SF Bay area and the day before driving all the way to Santa Barbara from the Bay area to pick up my daughter who was flying in from the East Coast. So, my daughter and I had decided we didn't want my wife to face this funeral all by herself. So, we packed up and left for the SF Bay area to go to this funeral with my wife. This was likely a really great idea partly because my daughter's daughter is less than 1 year old and lifted up everyone with her innocent Joy as she is a very happy and radiant baby too and loves people.
So, we brought life to a place of death both for my wife and for all those gathered there.
Then after the Mass for the lady who passed on the people from the mortuary wheeled the Casket up the center aisle to the Hearse parked outside and then we lined up our cars on the way to the Catholic Cemetary where there was a tent and chairs for family and friends there to witness the casket and to put holy water on the casket and flowers on the casket before it was literally lowered on special straps with winches literally 6 feet under the ground with the flowers on top.
I think personally this was all a bit much even for me to deal with. However, it is true that maybe this is more real the way people in the western world have dealt with death a lot (before cremation became so popular).
I can remember in 1985 kissing my father on his forehead where his steel blue eyes had flattened in the dryness of the desert heat in the mortuary and crematorium and pushing his body into the furnace to burn him to ashes then.
And then I can remember in 2008 doing the same for my mother (she was 90) and then pushing her body into the furnace to be burned up too and then standing outside because the furnace is so loud and watching the smoke go up the chimney outside and thinking to myself how she would have loved to fly up into the sky with the birds on the smoke instead of being buried.
I also remember putting my father's ashes above Horse Camp On Mt. Shasta near the trail to the summit from HOrse Camp there on Mt. Shasta.
I can also remember we rented a yacht and put my mother's ashes in the ocean where John Denver crashed his plane because she always liked John Denver and his music.
So, in my life at least it's always been about "What to do with the ashes" more than anything else.
I think I like the way my family gets cremated better. There just seems to be a lot less fear and remorse and upsettedness by cremating people and putting their ashes in the ocean or on land somewhere you can visit once they are gone.
However, it's also true that people have done things the Catholic Way likely for around 2000 years too and so maybe for me today was a history lesson regarding Early Christianity more than anything else.
Either way, when you are gone you are gone whether you are 95 like today or just born either way.
And once you are gone they need to do something with your body so it doesn't spread disease like it can when left out in the open like I saw in India in 1985 and 1986 on the streets.
So, mostly how you deal with people after they are gone is more about the living (those who remain alive for now) than anything else and what they will think and what they will do ongoing from then on.
So, to see funerals as a way for people to learn to cope with their loved ones leaving (at least their bodies) might be a good way to view all this and that everything we do is actually more for the living than for the dead regarding these bodies that no longer contain life like they used to.
So, I guess however you can find a way to deal with the loss of a loved one at any age is maybe what you should do to survive these losses.
For me, at age 77 I have already lost all my aunts and uncles, both my parents and also my grandparents and most of my cousins. So, what is left for me is my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my cousin and his wife and 3 children and 9 grandchildren too.
This is why your children and Grandchildren become more and more important over the years when you lose all these other people older than yourself or around your same age.
Because finding a way forward often is harder every year you live because of all these losses of friends and family.
My best friend from High School passed away in 2011. My best friend from church passed away in 2006. My father passed away in 1985 and my mother passed away in 2008. And most of my grandparents were gone by 1978 with my mother's mother at age 90 who was the last to go of all of them.
Preparing for death in some ways is equally important to preparing for life.
I can see the truth of this every day now.
If you are prepared to die right now you are ahead of the game.
A funeral (of any kind) is quite an education about life and people.
By God's Grace
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